1947 Partition: The Day India Burned.

As I looked at him I thought of Train to Pakistan and tried to imagine the murderous frenzy that overtook Punjab following Partition as Sikhs and Hindus massacred Muslims and Muslims massacred Sikhs and Hindus and a huge transfer of population took place to and from the Indian and Pakistani parts of the Punjab as the land of the five rivers got bloodily divided. I was looking at him and thinking how it would have been for him to witness that genocide of Punjabis by Punjabis and how aptly he described it in Train to Pakistan. As if he had sensed my thoughts he said to me, “Do you know the Sikhs are now rebuilding mosques destroyed during the violence of Partition? In one village of the Indian Punjab the local Sikhs have rebuilt a demolished mosque, handed it over to the Muslims and now Sikhs stand guard outside the mosque as Muslims pray inside. Do get hold of this week’s Outlook and read the wonderful article by Chander Suta Dogra.” I got it the same evening. It turned out that “around 200 mosques across Punjab have been repaired, rebuilt or built from scratch with the help of Sikhs and Hindus in the last 10 years… In the months after Partition, some 50,000 mosques across present day Punjab, Haryana and Himachel Pardesh were destroyed, burnt or converted into temples, gurdwaras, homes, even. Today, Muslims just comprise 1.5 per cent of Punjab’s population, mostly migrant labour from UP and Bihar… in addition to small pockets of Muslims, such as those belonging to Malerkotla, who did not go to Pakistan in 1947”. The article further informs the reader that the Malerkotla chapter of the Jamaat-e-Islami (Hind) has also been rebuilding mosques through the active help and co-operation of local Hindus and Sikh landlords. I told Khushwant Singh about the large Gurdwara in Sargodha that is now called the Ambala Muslim High School. Sargodha was the district headquarters of the district Shahpur of which Khushab was a tehsil. In 1947 the population of Sargodha city was 36,000 with only 6,000 Muslims and a very large Sikh presence. All Hindus and Sikhs went to India as post-Partition violence erupted and the city was taken over by Muslim refugees from the east Punjab city of Ambala. The large Sikh Gurdwara located in the city centre was converted to a school for boys. There was an exceedingly deep and sad look on his face as he thought of the horrors he had witnessed.